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Article: Marriage by capture.
- Article from:
- Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
- Article date:
- March 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Royal Anthropological Institute. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Marriage by capture has a long lineage in anthropological writing and speculation and still appears frequently in modern ethnographic contexts. It was central to John F. McLennan's theory of the origin of exogamy, which linked totemism, female infanticide, exogamy, marriage by capture and polyandry into a single theory. Although his theory has generally been dismissed, it provided the starting point for a considerable body of analytic discussion. It has left its mark even on authors who may not acknowledge it, or even be unaware of it. We may wonder what McLennan would have made of the much more sophisticated ethnography of the present, if he were given the opportunity to ...